I met Claire and we headed through the Mont Blanc tunnel into Italy and over to Valle dell'Orco. On the way up it looked a bit wet and rainy, but we were also surprised to see a herd of cows being herded down the road towards us. They had the biggest bells around their neck I've ever seen.

23/09/2017
We made it back to Geneva airport with 45mins to spare before Neil's plane left! It was quite stressful following the terrible instructions to find the French part of the Geneva airport to drop off the car... but we made it. Neil flew home and I took a bus to Chamonix to meet Claire. Here the glacier near the Aguille du Midi also shows how much snow was around!

A photo of our entre's. Neil's (closest) sausage and potato tart while I had pumpkin soup with goats cheese froth and bacon bits. Mmmm, delicious. Mine was smooth and creamy while Neil's was salty and delicious.

We decided to go out for tea again. We'd been recommended a restaurant in La Rozier by our Gite owners, so we made a booking after our walk and came home to get washed and changed. Good thing we booked! It was delicious food and by the time we left there was not a spare table in the restaurant!
Pre-entre seen here is an eggplant purée with goats cheese froth and walnut crush. Tiny but delicious!

A view of where we went on our walk. We went along the bottom of the cliffs the left side of this picture, then crossed over the top and came back along the bottom of the cliffs on the right. We saw ancient ruins, a natural spring, some vultures and quite a few other people. Seems hiking is very popular around here.

21/09/2017
Rest day today and it was predicted to be 24'C, which mean hot! We decided to go for a walk starting at the base of the Tarn and Jonte gorges in a town called La Rozier. We hiked and climbed ladders to get to the lookout on top of Capluc. This was the view!!

I ordered caramel praline something. It was like a very light mouse on a thin biscuit base drizzled in caramel sauce. It was amazing!
Pre-desert we had a cheese tasting plate. We had a choice of five, but looked a little confused with the choices so the waitress gave us a piece of each. The Rochfert was a mouldy and very salty cheese, Neil didn't like that one, or the goats cheese (Heather, you would have lived it!), but the other three were very nice and tasty.

We headed into Millau to find a tasty plat du jour to celebrate a great day climbing. The place we found was in the centre and we mis-interpreted the menu for the entre. No photos of the lamb intestines with salad but I did get a photo of my two quails for main course! They were delicious!

After lunch we headed over to do a route right up the middle of the wall under the vase. It had a strange name, Les Femmes et les grimpeurs d'abord. It was a 3-pitch 3-star 5c and looked a lot more popular than the first route! It was a classic and while steep, had some big holds and it made you feel like a million dollars climbing in such a spectacular location! Not a bad route to finish the day on.

20/09/2017
Went sport climbing at the Tarn yesterday, but didn't get any photos. Favourite route of the day was Tresor du Zebra (I've interpreted that to mean Zebra Treasure!) a beautiful Pickett and steep 7a.
Today we're back at la Jonte. First route was the left trending diagonal crack with the bush on it called La Demande Aveyronnaise. It was 4 pitches of trad and bolts, and supposedly got three stars in the Rockfax guide. We've done La Demamde in Verdon, so this was the La Demand of this area (Aveyronnaise). It was airy, but the rock was a little average in places, and it actually wasn't that good. We were quite disappointed!

Neil had a boring entre and streak and chips for main, so no photos of those! But he had a really interesting desert. It was like a flan but had pineapple inside it like a little cake. Accompanied by rum and raisin ice cream.

This via ferrata had fixed safety lines along the whole thing, along with a huge amount of giant staples for hand and foot rails. We fashioned two slings to act as safety lines attached to our harnesses so we could easily transfer from one safely line to another as we climbed along.